


Dream No Little Dreams

by athena_crikey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He will not be this. He will not dream this dream. Fix-it fic; spoilers for 5x13.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream No Little Dreams

The world is full of sound – bird song, the wind in the trees, the low rumble of Kilgharrah’s speech – but Merlin can hear only one thing: the last faltering beats of Arthur’s heart. He can feel it even through the thick layers of mail and leather and cotton, can feel it inside his own chest as though it is his own heart that is failing. 

No.

Kilgharrah is speaking to him, but he does not hear the words – his ears are bent to Arthur and Arthur alone. It is instead a picture he sees, reflected in the pure gold of the dragon’s eyes. A prophecy, the future as Kilgharrah envisions it.

He sees himself sending Arthur into Avalon on a bed of rushes, as he has sent so many other shards of his heart – Freya, Balinor, Lancelot, Finna. The tiny boat sails smoothly on the lake into the shroud of mist, where it is lost. And Merlin waits. 

No.

Merlin watches as the seasons change, as the trees fall and saplings grow. He sees great things come to pass – battles fought, treaties signed, cities built. Roads come: dirt, gravel, stone, and finally some hard black river laid down like paint. And throughout it all he waits, his garb shifting in colour and fabric and style, his age rising and falling. And Arthur remains in Avalon, untouched, asleep. Apart.

_No._

Kilgharrah leaves before the vision is finished, before he can see what centuries of waiting may bring. It is truly a dragon’s dream: one of loyalty, solitude, and eternity. 

But Merlin is no dragon. 

He has been many things for Albion, for Camelot, for friends and foes alike. He has been servant and jester, thief and murderer, Dragon Lord and physician, ancient warlock and aged soothsayer. He has been and has done everything that was asked of him, and more.

He will not be this. He will not dream this dream.

Beneath his palm, Arthur’s heart is gathering its strength for a final beat. It has carried him far, but there is so much more to see and do and be. Merlin will not let it end. Not now, when everything was just beginning. Not even here, on the shores of Avalon. 

Merlin closes his eyes, lets out his breath, and stops the world.

There is no silence like this silence, except perhaps death. The leaves pause mid-rustle, birds hang motionless in the sky, even the tiny drops of spray at the edge of the lake shine like gems in the air. The light itself changes as it slows, becomes shadowy and blue to cast everything in an eerie, frigid glow. The only moving thing in all his sight is Kilgharrah, flying away with lumbering beats of his arthritic wings, the magic of his being too strong for even Merlin to affect.

Merlin has never slowed time to this extent before. He can feel the incredible weight of it pushing against him already, trying to crush the air from his lungs and grind his bones down to powder. He is the one tiny piece of grain stopping the clockwork of the universe, and the pressure is unspeakably enormous. 

Merlin lays Arthur down in stiff movements on the blue-tinged grass, panting for breath that does not come easily. Although he is safe here, Arthur is pale and cold in this frozen world, just as he was on the bed of rushes in Kilgharrah’s eye. The sight of him like that is more than enough to erase the last doubt from Merlin’s mind. 

He rises slowly, feeling as though he his lifting the castle portcullis on his back, and clears his mind. When he speaks it is not in his tongue, but the dragons’ rumbling roar.

_Aithusa. I summon thee to attend this place._

  
***  


From afar, the white dragon looks briefly like a swan soaring through the dark sky. But the resemblance is fleeting – Aithusa is no pretty flyer, twisted wings barely able to keep its heavy body aloft. Merlin watches it approach without moving, his joints locked against the ever-growing pressure.

It circles in low over the lake and lands with an ugly stumbling thump near the treeline, where it regards Merlin with evident fear and distrust.

“His doom has found him,” he tells Aithusa in a flat voice, not moving from Arthur’s side. “The Great Dragon said Mordred would be Arthur’s bane. The Diamar predicted Arthur himself would bring about his downfall. But they could have as easily named me. I spared Morgana’s life; I could not stop Mordred; I called you from the egg. It is a shard from your blade that has pierced his heart.”

The dragon bunches its wings, head low like a tired cart-horse. It is defensive and petulant, a child resentful of being scolded. Merlin shakes his head and speaks on, voice rough and thick.

“I will not watch him die. If Kilgharrah’s prophecy is to come to pass, it will not be today.” He stiffens, looking down at Arthur. “I cannot be all that I am, and still fail him.”

He stares the dragon in the eye, and speaks the words of command. “You will heal him.” He leaves no room in his tone for disobeying; it is not a request, or even an order. The dragon does not have a choice but to do as he tells it. He has no place in his heart for regret: it is Arthur’s life, and that is all there is to it.

Aithusa slinks forward, tail nearly dragging on the grass. It sniffs at Arthur’s chest, its breath the only warmth in this timeless world. It gives a low keening cry, and blows a gentle gust of magic over him before scampering backwards, quick as a dog fearful of being whipped. 

Merlin drops heavily to his knees, knowing he won’t be able to rise again with the weight crushing him down. He rolls up the layers of Arthur’s mail and clothes until there is pale skin beneath. At the bottom of his ribs is the red line of Mordred’s wound, the skin there thickened and bulging. Merlin draws Excalibur, the sword almost too heavy to lift in his shaking hand, and makes a shallow cut over the wound. He draws out the piece of broken blade from it – it slides out smoothly as a thorn, and the skin knits closed behind it. 

Merlin lays a hand over the smooth skin and feels the whole muscle and bone beneath it: there is no trace of the mortal wound. Arthur’s heart is whole and untouched, strong enough to carry all of Camelot. Strong enough, surely, to carry the one sorcerer in the world unable to live without him.

He had thought he had no tears left, that they had all been spent in the past two days. But they come now, sudden and choking as he bends to rest his forehead against Arthur’s.

“Thank you.” He presses Arthur’s hand, giddy with the knowledge that there will be life there again. “Thank you.”

Breathing is becoming steadily more difficult; the air feels thick as dough in his lungs. He cannot straighten, and so turns his head to catch the dragon’s eye.

“You have been wronged by many, but perhaps most of all by me... I have not been there for you when you needed help, and for that I am sorry. Beginning today… many things will change. That, surely, is one of them.” It is growing hard to speak, his thoughts drifting away before he can catch them, his breath too shallow to form long words.

The dragon paws the earth uncertainly; there is no trust in its eyes, only wariness. Maybe that is all that there will ever be; only time will tell. And he will have to return to it very shortly, or the world will return to it without him.

“You may go,” he whispers, dropping his head back against Arthur and closing his eyes. He hears the heavy beating of its wings, and knows that it’s gone. 

Shivering fingers clasping Arthur’s hand tightly, Merlin takes a last breath of the thick air and lets time flood back in. He hardly notices it; he feels drugged, swaddled in blankets with cotton wool in his ears, heavy as if weighted down. Breathing alone takes all his thought and energy, just making his chest rise and fall is exhausting. 

And then, without warning, the world shifts from dark to light. A shadow swoops over him; he squints and tries to brush it away but his hand is trapped. No matter; he doesn’t have the strength anyway.

“Merlin.”

He blinks, tries to focus his tired eyes, and then gives up.

“Merlin.”

The sun’s so bright, beating down through the autumn trees to make the world shine gold.

“What kind of servant falls asleep in front of his master?”

But he isn’t under the trees, and it isn’t autumn. Merlin’s eyes snap into focus so fast they ache, and he stares up at the anxious face above him. For one long heartbeat he can’t seem to make sense of it. And then sense and memory return, sharp as the release of a bowstring.

His eyes widen and he springs up, watching the fear flee from Arthur’s face to be replaced by relief, and finds that it is Arthur’s hand pressing his.

“You said I could have a day off,” he stammers, mind somewhere else entirely, a place of thankfulness and wonder because Arthur is all right, he is all right and that means everything else will be, too. 

Arthur drags him into an embrace tight enough to crush the wind out of him again, but in a good way.

“I believe,” he says, in Merlin’s ear, “I said two.”

THE BEGINNING.


End file.
